User friendly? Well, the workflow you're used to from PP still works fine. So everything you learned there is still applicable. Fast? Faster than P5. I can't compare with P4/PP, the demo wouldn't install on my machine (probably too much RAM for a program dating back 8 years). Probably it's somewhat slower than P4/PP. The OpenGL preview is very, very nice. You can actually see transparent materials, and response to camera movement is much better. Much depends on your graphics hardware, however, a decent 3D graphics card is recommended. The lighting and rendering is totally incomparable with P4/PP. Much, much better. You are going to LOVE point lights and raytracing. Volumetric lighting is beautiful, but renders very, very slow. Image based lighting plus shadow catchers allow you to render a scene over a background image without having to patch in the shadows in postwork. Dynamic cloth is very, very useful. Naturally flowing long skirts and wide sleeves. No more pokethru, doesn't matter what morph or pose. Extremely useful for animations. The new material options are very, very useful. No more glowing nostrils, for instance, when using Ambient Occlusion. Raytraced materials can give you true reflections - making a mirror is a breeze. Realistic water is now possible. Scripting support is much, much better. Sounds technical, but for a layman it means being able to run Python scripts that can do amazing things for your image. See the work by face_off for instance - totally impossible in the old P4/PP. I haven't used the face room, so I don't have an opinion on it. Dynamic hair can give you very realistic hair. It's especially well suited for animations - hair that blows in the wind and bounces as the character walks, all calculated instead of frame by frame posing. The material room has a very nice feature: you can switch between basic (which looks a lot like the P4 material dialog) and advanced (if you're feeling nerdy). Harnessing the full power of P6 is not easy. It has a lot of features. But you still can use your P4/PP skills, and slowly go from there. P6 is well worth its money. Especially at the upgrade price. All of your old content can be used in P6.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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